


I Do Need You.

by tsukkim0on



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys Are Dumb, Gen, Kozume Kenma & Kuroo Tetsurou Friendship, Kozume Kenma is Bad at Feelings, Light Angst, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love, y/n might catch hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28843029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukkim0on/pseuds/tsukkim0on
Summary: Kenma Kozume is a man of few words, and he thought you were okay with that.Until he realizes that it might not actually be okay, and that maybe he's already long lost you to his best friend.(Or part 3 of haikyuu characters responding/reacting to: realizing you're better off with their best friend")
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 51





	I Do Need You.

**One.**

“What do you even do on the days that I can’t come? Does Kenma pay attention to you?”

“I mean he plays a lot, but I don’t mind. I vibe until he acknowledges me. Or I make him acknowledge me.”

“Sounds like a lot of effort. I’ll have to start recording podcasts for you to listen to on the days I can’t be your entertainment and he forgets you’re even here.”

“Oh, that’d be lovely. If I play it on speaker, maybe you’ll irritate him enough so that he turns to yell at you and sees me.” 

Your and Kuroo’s laughter rang through Kenma’s ears, simulating a reaction similar to that of hearing his morning alarm. The back and forth between you and Kuroo was always that easy; you read each other's sarcasm and jokes like books you had written yourselves, and Kenma was sort of the editor that got to impose upon the writing process. For the most part, he didn’t mind taking a backrow seat to your antics. 

But in times like these, he couldn’t help but feel ostracized, and it made him feel like shit. He and Kuroo knew each other best out of you three, that was indisputable with them having been childhood friends and all, but the effortless way Kuroo bounced conversation off of you was something he had never been able to do. You had your own way of showcasing your care through physical affections and other actions, but the lack of communication still bothered Kenma more than he’d like to admit. Especially when even you acknowledged that he wasn’t doing enough. _Especially_ then.

“I do pay attention to them, Kuroo,” Kenma mumbled, trying to shake off his irritation.

“Oh, he speaks!” Kuroo proclaimed, feigning disbelief, “then is it like Toy Story where you only come to life when I’m not around?” 

You stifled a laugh and smacked Kuroo with a pillow, but he took it back from you and started hitting you back. Kenma watched, his defense dying on his lips, unable to put a name to the nauseous feeling growing in his stomach as you started play-fighting with him. Just like that, Kuroo was able to turn anything into a fun time with you. When was the last time _he_ had made you that happy? Had he ever? 

_...could_ he ever?

Kenma did a lot of things to avoid emotions. He let himself get lost in gaming, practicing, and occasionally studying-anything that would stop his mind from thinking about all the what-ifs. Because if he confronted those emotions, he didn’t know what would happen. He was comfortable in the little bubble you had of subtly caring for one another, and if no attempt was made to change or clarify or label things, then he could pretend it to be whatever he wanted.

So he convinced himself you loved him. In the way you ensured he didn’t skip his meals. In the way you massaged his shoulders after his desk chair had been particularly unforgiving. In the way you brushed his hair for him sometimes when you noticed a tangle. He pretended you did it out of love. And he realized now that you _did_. Just not the kind of love he wanted. 

So now here was reality paying him a visit a long overdue, finding the feelings he had stored away in the dark dusty rooms of his heart and turning on all the lights. Kuroo could make you laugh and smile and enjoy yourself like it was as natural as breathing to him. You two would be good together, great together probably. And worst of all, nothing much would change from the way you acted with each other already if you got together. Kuroo would have nothing to fear by confessing to you. Unlike Kenma. 

Kenma was confused, embarrassed, and most of all hurt at the realization. He’d overshot his expectations with what he could become to you and missed terribly. He knew he couldn’t win a game unless he strategized and tried and committed, so why did he give up with you? You meant enough to him to try. 

_But what good is trying when you aren’t the character assigned to the quest?_

“If you two get along so well, then why do you need me?”

The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he _should have_ wanted to take them back. Especially when he saw the way you froze and looked almost scared at the question, maybe because you didn’t have an answer, or worse, it was one he wasn’t prepared to hear. But what was said was said, and if the words came out of his mouth there was a reason they had. If he was nothing else, at least he was being honest, and it felt refreshing after so long of lying to himself. You set the pillow down and made a move to stand and approach him, but he didn’t look at you, instead focusing his attention on Kuroo.

“They said they didn’t mind. Why couldn’t you just drop it? Why do you have to come in and treat me like a burden for not being as obnoxious as you?”

You had never seen him be so hostile before, especially not with Kuroo, “Kenma, he was just joking.” 

“He’s always ‘just joking’,” he turned to you now, “and you’re defending him and making the same jokes when you insist that you don’t mind. So clearly, you do. You both mind.”

The call-out made you feel terrible. Thinking back, you realized how hurtful your words had been even if it wasn’t just your fault. Kenma was someone who liked reassurance in who he was so he could be at ease with what he did, and you had gone and thrown the behavior you spent so long understanding right back in his face. You were speechless. Your guilt was immeasurable.

“Look, Kenma, I don’t want to fight with you. I’ll apologize, okay?” Kuroo’s words were careful, and you could tell how tense he was. He had probably gone through the same thought process as you, but he had to be feeling worse. “I’ll pretend you didn’t call me obnoxious because I really don’t know what got into you-”

“What got into me is that I’m clearly not needed here. If you want to enjoy yourselves together then you can do it somewhere away from me where you don’t have to deal with me “ignoring you” and you can talk shit freely. Because I’m sick of it. So fuck off.” Kenma spun around in his chair and pulled his headset on without another word. Just like that, you were left to contemplate what the hell had just happened.

You tried to make eye contact with Kuroo, ask what you should do, but he had closed himself off completely. His jaw was tight and his expression blank as he tossed the pillow on his lap onto the bed, getting down and walking to the door. His hand lingered on the knob for a few seconds and you waited nervously. He turned his head and looked from you to Kenma and his look told you that he was leaving the issue to you, like he knew something you didn’t. The door opened and shut behind him.

The silence was deafening. Your eyes moved to Kenma. He had a game open but he wasn’t clicking anything on the screen; he was waiting for you. Honestly, you just wanted to cry. 

Grabbing your bag, you took slow steps in his direction, thinking about the look Kuroo had given you. Kenma still hadn’t moved. But you didn’t even know what you _could_ do, you couldn’t think and you felt so bad, he probably hated you at the moment and rightfully so. So you bit your cheek to hold back tears, straightened yourself out, and walked out, sending a telepathic apology to Kuroo for being a coward. 

~

It hurt him to see you walk out.

He hadn’t meant what he said. Most of it, at least. He had those negative thoughts sometimes but his doubts were usually always wiped from his brain the second you two were alone together and he was reassured that he was important to you in his own way. He knew you two liked to joke and he definitely didn’t want you to go. So why had he exploded this time?

_It was all lies._

Ah, yes. Reality. All the evidence pointing to the fact that he definitely didn’t have a shot and that Kuroo was better for you. It was a pain that was going to take a long time to heal, that’s for sure, and your friendship may never come back from it. But it would be better for the both of you, that you’d be free from the restraint of his presence and he’d stop pretending you’d love him one day.

As the week passed, he didn’t speak to you. His conversations with Kuroo at practice were strained, but he didn’t miss the way Kuroo looked at him with worry. Neither of you had reached out to him to deny his accusations, and that was all the confirmation he needed to know that he was right. The reason you had looked so scared when he asked his initial question _was_ because the answer was one he wasn’t prepared to hear. 

_You didn’t need him._

**Two.**

Sunday, 11:12 pm

*attachment: 1 video file*<

this cat reminded me of you, isn't it cute<

Tuesday, 7:48 am

I'm so tired, I stayed up all night studying for today's exam. Goodluck! <

Tuesday, 10:26 am

I don't think I failed for once<

Any idea how you did?<

Thursday, 3:17 pm

Kuroo said you've been really tired at practice<

Have you been taking care of yourself?<

Friday, 5:42 pm

Ignore the last text, sorry if I'm overstepping.<

I hope you're okay<

I miss you...

**Three.**

Your brain took the wheel from your heart, quickly swerving around those three words before you could send them. _If he hadn’t replied so far, he wasn’t going to._ You were trying too hard to act normal when things clearly weren’t. You were still confused about that day, why he had flipped attitudes like a switch, and there really was a lot about the situation that didn’t sit right with you. Of course, you acknowledged how shitty your comments were but it wasn’t the first time you and Kuroo had said stuff like that, so why had he blown up… was he fed up, or had it been something else? 

You regretted walking out when you should have apologized to him, but now, days later, you were too disappointed in yourself to try and explain to him. Why would he want to talk to you when you had made him feel like he was a bother and so clearly told you to leave him alone? But as your brain replayed the memory of that afternoon, you wished you had done _something_ to tell him you didn’t want to leave. That you did need him.

~

From the other side of the screen, Kenma was staring at the hands you had outstretched to him via text for the millionth time that week, a mirage of emotions playing both in his head and on his face. His fingers curled reflexively at his side in retaliation to your efforts, despite loathing the absence of the warm skin they truly yearned to hold onto. A faint memory of you letting him lay his head in your lap as you played with his hair when he had been upset over something random terrorized his thoughts while he tried desperately to come to terms with the fact that he shouldn’t be mad at _you_ over a situation _he_ had probably blown out of proportion. But he didn’t have it in him to smile at the thought of you anymore; he couldn’t indulge in memories and daydreams of you, not if he wanted to get over you and let you be happy with someone else. 

His outburst surprised even him. He was so reserved with his emotions that it terrified him, sitting alone in his room hours after you had left him there to be eaten alive by his thoughts, how much control you had over his heart to indirectly puppeteer such a reaction from him. You and Kuroo were his best friends, and even if he lost the two of you to each other he didn’t want to lose you both completely, that much was obvious to him. But deep down in his heart crackled a little fire that burned solely with your kindling, and imagining you with someone else threatened to completely snuff the flame.

The sudden appearance of three blinking dots indicated another message from you, another blow of air on the pleading embers of that fire within him, and it made his heart lurch. Just as quickly as they appeared, they disappeared, leaving him to ponder if he had imagined them, and what it would even mean if he had. 

Without pausing to wonder if you were still there on the other side of his screen, he let himself type away furiously, not bothering to rationalize the jealousy, anger, and disappointment in himself that he poured out with each and every character. By the end of it he was sure half his sentences had stopped and forked into completely different ones, and you could throw the concept of grammar out the window. But he pressed the airplane mode button and clicked send before he could delete anything, now the second time he had resigned to leaving the truth of his feelings undelivered to you. 

It didn’t matter if you had let your once hopeful hands fall to your sides, so long as you were still there opposite him, overlooking the cataclysm he had made between the two of you. Because that meant that you still had hope, and your hope was a safety net that meant he could still find a way within himself to reach out to you. 

**Four.**

Kenma pulled up the collar of the sweater he was wearing, one that was technically his despite how strongly it smelled of you. After a shaky breath and a mere moments-long indulgence, he went back into his settings and turned off airplane mode. With one last glance at your text message chat, his tired eyes cleared the undelivered message dismissively, allowing his head to be anchored down to his pillow by the weight of the words he had finally expressed, drifting off into deep sleep for the first time in a week.

~

You were awoken from your nap by the chime of your phone.

**Five.**

Saturday, 3:43 pm

>I want you to hold me. and that sounds pathetic because I should be the one holding you when you’re sad but I know you would if I asked and thats what hurts the most. because im pushing you away when i know you just want to care about me. Thats who you are, youre someone who cares way too much and i hurt you because i saw you caring for someone else, i know i hurt you, i saw it in your eyes and i dont think ill ever forgive myself even if some day you find a way to forgive me. I wont say i want you to be happy with kuroo because i dont. I want you with me and i dont care how shitty that sounds. Im a coward and i wont say anything if you run off to be happy with him because you dont need me but i dont think ill ever figure out what to do with myself because ive been in love with you for a long time and not telling you is going to be the biggest regret of my life

**Six.**

“Kenma? Your mom let me in.”

A week ago you wouldn’t have announced your presence. You would have waltzed in and made yourself comfortable wherever you saw fit. But that felt too personal now. He was laying down facing away from the door, no response for you incoming, but it became immediately apparent that he was faking his slumber. His body became increasingly tense and his breathing too labored and uneven for someone who was asleep.

You sighed. Walking over, you sat on the edge of his bed carefully so as not to disturb him in case you had read his body language wrong. You were very good at reading him, but this past week had felt like it had disrupted the beat you and he marched to. After several moments of arguing with yourself, you reached out to stroke his hair, awarded with a reflexive shiver. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, no bite, just a question.

“I should be asking you that.” You replied, no risk yet, just a response.

“I was sleeping.”

“Doesn’t seem like you’re getting much rest.”

“I’m fine. Go home.”

“...I got your text.”

His eyes opened and glazed over. He heaved himself to a sitting position, ignoring your worried stare, throwing his pillows around urgently in search of his phone. He knew what text you meant, even if he didn’t know how you had gotten it, so it wasn’t like it really mattered anymore. He still rejoiced when he found it. You watched on in silence.

He opened his phone and clicked on your chat, seeing that the text he had erased was in fact still there, the reassurance of “not delivered” now replaced with an unfortunate delivery confirmation. His eyes had nothing left to take from his screen, but he was too afraid to look anywhere else. He spoke, voice a broken whisper.

“If you’re here to be sorry for me, don’t be.”

“Kenma, I thought you were smarter than this.”

A wave of anger washed over him, but he pushed it down this time. 

“…what does that mean?“

“You got upset, you lashed out.”

He faltered. The creases between his brows didn’t look good on him. You refrained from rubbing them away.

“You’re telling me I’m dumb for being upset? I was tired when I sent the text. Forget about it.”

“That’s not how I meant that. I don’t feel sorry for you and I’m not telling you what to feel. I just want to apologize the way I should have already.”

That made him look up. You took advantage of his focus while you had it.

“Why were you so quick to push us away?”

He fought against the anger again.

“You read the text.”

“I want you to tell me. Here, now. Help me understand you.”

“This whole thing happened because I’m not good with words, y/n.”

“I don’t need you to be good with them. Just talk to me, Ken.” He sighed.

“Kuroo can make you a type of happy I can’t. I _want_ to make you that happy. But I can’t even talk to you properly and I’m too scared to tell you how I feel in case it messes things up. Too much could go wrong. But with him things seem so easy for you, yet if you’re with him I know I wouldn’t be able to handle being around you so that’s why I just wanted you gone. I blew the situation up more because it gave me an excuse to make you leave so I wouldn’t have to keep watching you and him act the way you do.”

“...okay,” he was sitting with his legs crossed, facing you now. Your hand found it’s way to his and you squeezed it, he squeezed back although unsure. “First off, you didn’t blow the situation up. It was completely justified considering we weren’t thinking about your feelings, or considering how shitty a joke could make you feel, so from the bottom of my heart I’m sorry. I don’t know why I figured you knew how I felt so I didn’t think you’d take any of it seriously. But how could you if I’ve never explicitly told you? I know you get anxious so I should have told you.” You shook your head.

“...told me what?”

He let himself forget about reality for a moment.

“That I love you.”

You made yourself reach for him one final time. The look you gave him was pleading, and that was all it took to get him to make the jump and finally take a firm hold of you.

He had never been the type to cry violently, or cry much at all. If you had to guess, it was likely the relief of all the negative thoughts being washed away that made him fall apart in your arms, the only thing betraying him being a wet sniffle every once in a while.

“I don’t care that you aren’t so talkative, Ken. I spend time with you because your presence makes me feel safe and you feel like home to me. You don’t have to give me all your attention, you know well that I make you give it to me if I ever really do want it,” he laughed a little at that, but didn’t lift his face from where it was buried in your chest, “And I don’t want Kuroo to make me happy. I don’t _need_ him to. You already do. So make me happy again. I miss you and I don’t wanna leave you alone anymore.”

Having run out of tears, Kenma looked up at you. Now up close, he saw how tired you looked too, realizing the weight of his words probably affected you a lot as well. Misunderstandings were a painful thing when emotions were involved. He didn’t want either of you feeling so exhausted anymore. 

He kissed you hard, with about as much emotion as you’d expect from someone who was finally getting something they’d wanted for a long time. And as you kissed and cuddled the rest of the night there on his bed, you knew you’d be fine. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t the best with his words or if some things went misunderstood, because so long as you communicated that you wanted each other some way, that would be enough.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So fun fact, I wrote the middle 4/6ths of this thread before I even wrote the fight that caused the mess. I woke up from a nap with the urge to write something and combined with my backwards way of doing everything I somehow made this happen. I had felt for a long time that I wasn’t writing as well as I used to and I think this was the culmination of that frustration! Again, this was formatted for a twitter text thread but since it ended up being longer than anticipated, I wanted to post it here too. You can find my twitter [here](https://twitter.com/tsukkim0on).


End file.
